Papua New Guinea needs to review mine safety regulations to keep up with current trends and practices, a provincial official says.
East New Britain deputy administrator Levi Mano said this at the opening of a consultative forum for the New Guinea Islands region on mine and works on safety and health bill 2021, including the Mine Safety Act (1977) in Kokopo, yesterday.
The one-day consultation forum was facilitated by the Department of Mineral Policy Geohazards Management.
Mano said the extractive industry had become more sophisticated and varied and there was a need to encompass the developments in legislation.
“We are in the equator and we are also vulnerable to the environment and there are certain things engineers do not expect things to happen but it happens also,” Mano said.
“We have not experienced any major disaster in mining here in PNG apart from minor ones like from what we have been hearing from the other parts of the world.
“We don’t want to wait for that time to happen when hundreds of people should be trapped in the cave of whatever operation that we have.
“I think we are always proactive and, therefore, I want to say thank you to the deaprtment team for taking some yard steps in making sure that we properly legislate for safety in all our mines in our country.”
Mano said this was the right time the legislation should be framed to protect ourselves, the environment and the infrastructure.
The consultation forum was headed by the acting secretary of the department with the state team which included – Department of Provincial Affairs, State Solicitors, Department of Labour and the legal officers within the department.
Statement/TheNational/PacificMiningWatch